Wednesday, 24 February 2016

Posthumanism & MOOC a book by Jeremy Knox #MOOC #criticalresearch

A couple of months ago, I had the pleasure of receiving a
manuscript for review. Although the review was limited to the first chapters, I
got all excited by what Jeremy Knox had written. The book looks at MOOC and puts the within a posthumanist framework to analyse its meaning and impact. Jeremy refers to different MOOC along the way, proving his main philosophical ideas.

From the intro: "This book is about the rise to prominence of the MOOC: its
high-profile marketing and emerging approaches to research; its spatial ordering
of university provision and online education; and the unprecedented number and
spread of its students.

However, this book is also about the human condition: a
human condition that is profoundly and intimately entwined with the ideas and
practices of education, of which the MOOC is merely one.

This book draws on a well-established critique of humanism
from philosophy and critical theory: critical posthumanism. It is this
theoretical sensitivity that will allow the ensuing analysis to look beyond the
limitations of the humanist subject in the discourses and material practices of
the MOOC, and work towards new understandings of this far-reaching and
technology-infused form of education.

This book uses critical posthumanism as an umbrella term for
a number of specific theoretical areas, each of which will inform particular
aspects of analysis in the succeeding chapters: new materialism; postcolonial intersections
with posthumanism; spatial and mobilities theory; sociomaterial theory; and the
idea of the ‘monstrous’ as a critical examination of the humanist ideal".